I was listening to Alistair Begg on the radio yesterday. They're running a series of his sessions from his church's pastors conference on his daily radio broadcast. Speaking to pastors, he said that no one is above needing the work of God in their life. He said that this is a challenge for pastors, because they are used to being professional listeners -- so used to critiquing the style, the delivery, the presentation, the theology and interpretation that they can't hear the truth being spoken from God's word.
This is so me. It also describes most of my friends, especially those of us who have had the privilege of a somewhat advanced biblical and theological education.
I've had to learn to turn this off. And I've come a long way. After all, we used to heckle every brilliant (and not-so-brilliant) famous pastor/speaker we had the chance to hear at LU. The turning point for me was when I started dating my wife, and she responded to our heckling with a dirty look and the comment, "There may be someone here who needs to hear this!" So I eventually stopped doing it out loud, mostly because I like her and I didn't want her to break up with me because I couldn't hold my arrogant tongue. And gradually, I figured out that she was right. I also discovered that the more I shut up and listened, the more I gained from each speaker. Almost every one of them had something to say that I needed to hear. This was an amazing discovery, as I had previously been convinced that they had all been preselected exclusively for their butchering of the english language, christian theology, and biblical interpretation.
I want to encourage all professional listeners: I have climbed the mountain, and I have seen the other side! And it is good!
Love and peace,
Jared
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1 comment:
Yeah, we were pretty harsh to some of those speakers. I wish they could speak English well.
But that's no excuse.
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